Question

I am using jquery to create tabs on my GUI. My question is, I want to execute a function upon clicking on one of the tabs. I found the following info from the jquery site. I am new to jquery, however, and I can’t understand what “.selector” means. How can I identify a specific tab’s name? I only have an id for the whole tab set. Also, there are two segments of code from the jquery website. Can I choose to use either one? Thanks!

Directly from the jquery UI website:

This event is triggered when clicking a tab.

Code examples
Supply a callback function to handle the select event as an init option.
$( ".selector" ).tabs({
   select: function(event, ui) { ... }
});
Bind to the select event by type: tabsselect.
$( ".selector" ).bind( "tabsselect", function(event, ui) {
  ...
});

Answer 1

First, a selector is basically some way to select a DOM element. The basic selectors follow CSS and regular JavaScript Format. # for id and . for class

So in jQuery, to select a div with the id of “my-div” you would do this:

$('#my-div')

This grabs the jQuery node, with which, you can modify the node pretty much however you desire. Read about selectors more in detail in the jQuery documentation.

Now, for your tab question…you probably want the “show” event, not “select” so that you can catch the tab you are entering. The following example will set up a couple tabs, then alert the index of which tab you just clicked on.

HTML

<div class="demo">

    <div id="tabs">
        <ul>
            <li><a href="#tabs-1">Nunc tincidunt</a></li>
            <li><a href="#tabs-2">Proin dolor</a></li>
            <li><a href="#tabs-3">Aenean lacinia</a></li>
        </ul>
        <div id="tabs-1">
            <p>Proin elit arcu, rutrum commodo, vehicula tempus, commodo a, risus. Curabitur nec arcu. Donec sollicitudin mi sit amet mauris. Nam elementum quam ullamcorper ante. Etiam aliquet massa et lorem. Mauris dapibus lacus auctor risus. Aenean tempor ullamcorper leo. Vivamus sed magna quis ligula eleifend adipiscing. Duis orci. Aliquam sodales tortor vitae ipsum. Aliquam nulla. Duis aliquam molestie erat. Ut et mauris vel pede varius sollicitudin. Sed ut dolor nec orci tincidunt interdum. Phasellus ipsum. Nunc tristique tempus lectus.</p>
        </div>
        <div id="tabs-2">
            <p>Morbi tincidunt, dui sit amet facilisis feugiat, odio metus gravida ante, ut pharetra massa metus id nunc. Duis scelerisque molestie turpis. Sed fringilla, massa eget luctus malesuada, metus eros molestie lectus, ut tempus eros massa ut dolor. Aenean aliquet fringilla sem. Suspendisse sed ligula in ligula suscipit aliquam. Praesent in eros vestibulum mi adipiscing adipiscing. Morbi facilisis. Curabitur ornare consequat nunc. Aenean vel metus. Ut posuere viverra nulla. Aliquam erat volutpat. Pellentesque convallis. Maecenas feugiat, tellus pellentesque pretium posuere, felis lorem euismod felis, eu ornare leo nisi vel felis. Mauris consectetur tortor et purus.</p>
        </div>
        <div id="tabs-3">
            <p>Mauris eleifend est et turpis. Duis id erat. Suspendisse potenti. Aliquam vulputate, pede vel vehicula accumsan, mi neque rutrum erat, eu congue orci lorem eget lorem. Vestibulum non ante. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Fusce sodales. Quisque eu urna vel enim commodo pellentesque. Praesent eu risus hendrerit ligula tempus pretium. Curabitur lorem enim, pretium nec, feugiat nec, luctus a, lacus.</p>
            <p>Duis cursus. Maecenas ligula eros, blandit nec, pharetra at, semper at, magna. Nullam ac lacus. Nulla facilisi. Praesent viverra justo vitae neque. Praesent blandit adipiscing velit. Suspendisse potenti. Donec mattis, pede vel pharetra blandit, magna ligula faucibus eros, id euismod lacus dolor eget odio. Nam scelerisque. Donec non libero sed nulla mattis commodo. Ut sagittis. Donec nisi lectus, feugiat porttitor, tempor ac, tempor vitae, pede. Aenean vehicula velit eu tellus interdum rutrum. Maecenas commodo. Pellentesque nec elit. Fusce in lacus. Vivamus a libero vitae lectus hendrerit hendrerit.</p>
        </div>
    </div>

</div><!-- End demo -->

JavaScript

$(function() {
    $( "#tabs" ).tabs({
        show : function(event,ui) {
            alert($(this).tabs('option','selected'));
        }
    });
});

To explain the demo…You select the DOM element with id “tabs” then apply the jQuery UI plugin “tabs” to it. This modifies the HTML markup to be aesthetically pleasing, as well as provides you with an event system to give you flexibility and control over your UI. The “show” option is a callback function that should be triggered whenever a new tab is shown. Inside the callback, we use the jQuery UI API to select the tabs again (through this though) and then grab the index of the selected tab. Then of course, we alert that.

Hope this helps you out, and good luck.